2017 was a bit of a shitshow both personally and all over the news and my heart kind of went out of making comics. I drew this as a card for some friends ahead of going to their New Year's Eve party yesterday (shitshow comment aside, I know some wonderful people and do have my share of fond memories from the year gone).

Anyway, I coloured it with pencil, and it looks great in person but scanned like shit. I put it up on Patreon as a sketch and re-did it digitally today just for you.

I lose my comics mojo every couple of years. It tends to come back on its own after a while, but I never know how long that while is going to be. I can force it, but it kind of results in shitty comics.

So I'm taking a break to read and play video games and absorb input. I tend to make little comics as a by-product of existing so once that comes back I'm back in action.

@Satyr: That's weird. The way I've been formatting the comics lately they're kind of optimised for viewing on mobile device so it sucks that they're not working for you. The new site over at www.nekothekitty.net will probably work.

Yeah there were some contract issues with the original Murphy and this guy just read really well for the part. He's some sort of Maine Coon cross where the original Murphy was a short hair, it's kind of the same deal as Rhodey in the Iron Man films

OK, sorry about that folks, bad case of the brain worms. It happens. I've started doing NaNoWriMo, and the story I'm working on is about how Keno Aya and Murphy get home. I haven't really tried to write a novel before but I'm going on a basic linear structure like like The Hobbit and it's coming along quite nicely. Anyway working on the novel has knocked some of the other gears into working again, so we'll see about getting up and running again over on the new site.

"There's no such thing as bad publicity" is a terrible way to run a country, but a great way to run a campaign. If you allow for Dark Magic, the world actually makes quite a lot of sense.

Who do you think of first when you hear "Dark Lord"? For me it's Voldemort, followed by Sauron. Not as in Sauron following Voldemort, that would be silly, he'd crush him like a bug. You know what I mean. I think it's because I encounter Harry Potter stuff more in my day-to-day life and that may or may not have a causal relationship there to my liking it more. Minds are weird.

I don't think anybody ever called Skeletor Dark Lord.

We're catching up to the comics buffer over on nekothekitty.net, and once we're caught up I'm going to gradually forget about this site as I gradually forget about this site. For our long-term fans, you'll be getting previews of comics as I complete them, and the printable mini comics with bonus back cover illustrations are going up on Patreon ahead of the .net site too :)

OK, we've moved house, I have an appointment with the doctor on Tuesday to see what we can find out about the joint pain in my hands, and I've finished another mini comic. Nekothekitty.net is updating daily with catch-up episodes of the current run and we'll be redirecting everyone there once we do catch up, but for now, our lovely SmackJeeves readers are getting previews :)

So the aforementioned character redesigns basically come down to 'use bigger pens', and I'm using fewer lines as well. The most noticeable one was Alice's hair, and this is how we're covering it. I know, I know, it's terribly unlikely, but if you've read the archive we lost the bar for unlikelihood a loooong time ago.

So I went to the doctor this weekend to ask about the pain in my thumbs. I've been given an anti-inflammatory and a painkiller, but pending the results of an Xray I...might be developing osteoarthritis. I've been directed to rest my thumbs. I've always gripped the pen pretty hard so I'm going to have to experiment for a while. I'm going to try the inkbrush tool, I've never really used it but understand it requires a lighter hand than the pen so it might be a better fit but would require a bit of a character redesign again. Experiments as they progress

So in case it hadn't become clear yet I've decided I like the mini comics. I've also registered an account with Line Webtoon and the old ashcan 'zine format aligns itself remarkably well with the more modern vertical scrolling format, so it all works out. Once again hi-res printable layouts for the minis are going up on Patreon because pay me dammit